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Related Questions

Fraying Sanity

Enchantment — Aura Curse

Enchant Player

At the beginning of each end step, enchanted player puts X cards from the top of his or her library into their graveyard, where X is the number of cards that went to their graveyard from anywhere this turn.

Fraying Sanity Discussion

17 hours ago

Whenever Deepwater Frenzy attacks, the defending player puts the top card of their library into their graveyard.

As long as you control four or more creatures named Deepwater Frenzy, this creature gains vigilance.

2/2

With the Vampire subtype, you can use any number of Lords to beef it up. That would also put you most likely into Dimir, giving you access to a plethora of mill spells. You could also lean into Grixis for
Stromkirk Captain
and give them +1/+1 and first strike, too.

Lastly, with cards such as
Fraying Sanity
you can easily win the game once you declare your end step. Probably an uncommon, but a rare uncommon. You know, kind of like how
Fatal Push
was strangely difficult to open? One of those types.

Make a card that could easily be printed on Ixalan and on Innistrad. That is to say, find a balance between these two wildly different Planes and make a card that fits both well, kind of like Deepwater Frenzy did.

Leyline of the Void
ensures opponents can't take advantage of the cards you're placing in their graveyard, as well as deals with cards that would shuffle the graveyard into the library (such as the original Eldrazi Titans).

Thousand-Year Elixir
is not great here, since you need to untap 4 of your creatures to make the most of this mill strategy. Also, you are not currently running any creatures that need the mini-Haste Elixir provides--you're almost never going to want to activate the first ability of
Persistent Petitioners
, and they do not need haste to utilize the second as it lacks a symbol in the activation cost.

6 days ago

The library has no intrinsic value on its own. It has the potential for value, but, until actualised, that is all cards in the linrary are. Barring certain situations, you do not know I’d that top card is your 10th land or a much-needed
Path to Exile
.

Compare to other resources. Life is a more commonly attacked resource, frequently used with shocks/fetches to improve one’s mana. Cards on the battlefield and cards on the stack are realised or soon-to-be-realised. Cards in-hand are known quantities, ready for immediate use. Cards in the graveyard are also known and there is (barring some really old cards) no limit on where you can take cards from.

The library sits there. It provides no relevant information on its own. Yes, it might have the card you want next, but only the Fates know. Until those cards are put into another zone, be it your hand, graveyard, battlefield, or stack, they are little more than statistical probabilities.

To attack the library is to attack these statistical probabilities, not a resources your opponent is using or can swiftly use.

You are not actually denying them either cards or mana - you are denying them an unknown. Yes, you might mill away the card they need; you might also mill away a bunch of useless cards, moving their bomb to the next draw.

To add another problem Petitioners face in Modern, that I previously failed to mention:
Meddling Mage
.
Meddling Mage
is commonly played in Humans, itself a common deck. This is not a card you can easily sideboard against, particularly since you have 25 potential dead cards in your proposed deck.

You say “Forget about
Glimpse the Unthinkable
” and that mono-Blue will be “much faster”, but you have offered no evidence in support of said claim.

To the contrary, I have offered a deck with a potential turn 4 victory. I have presented, currently unanswered, difficulties with control-based mill.

By all means, I would be happy to be proven wrong. In case the long-winded analysis has not said it for me, I love mill, and would like to see it be viable.
Fraying Sanity
helped a lot, but it is still a bit too fragile.

Also, contrary to your statement:

I said Persistent Petitioners would make Mill "viable" not competitive - there is a big difference.

You actually said it would be viable in every format, “especially Modern”, evidencing a belief mill was more than simply viable. You went on to say mill would “shine” in a follow-up post. Without actual evidence, you claimed the new mill deck would be faster than the “lame” current one, which would put it a turn-three victory. That would be downright fantastic and possibly competitive for a Modern deck, if it worked.

So, pardon me if I think your backpeddling is a misrepresentation of your previous posts.

With regards to price, it is going up for the same reason
Shadowborn Apostle
is decently priced. Casual players love cards like this, but they need 20 to 40 copies (depending on format). As such, even if there is a small quantity of buyers, each is ordering 4 to 10, people’s worth of playsets. Supply is low, demand, in terms of quantity of cards, is high, and prices increase as a result.

6 days ago

Rabid_Wombat - Modern Mill is a burn deck, you're just burning their library, rather than their life total. Let's look at how a typical mill game plays out, and you will see how, despite not attacking life, it is an aggro playstyle, rather than control:

Persistent Petitioners
is worse than every single card on that list. There is no room for four copies, let alone more. As such, it will make no difference in mill's Modern viability.

But wait, you say, what about mill as a control deck?

Control's goal is to attack valuable resources, leaving you in a better position for victory. The library, which mill attacks, is not a valuable resource--until actualized, those are just hidden cards with no intrinsic value. There is little synergy between these two strategies, leaving mill-control a vastly inferior option to mill-burn. 60 "life" is a lot more than 20, making it far more likely that you run out of control resources before your opponent runs out of cards.

Even in such a deck, you would still not want
Persistent Petitioners
, as it would detract from your absolutely necessary control cards and high-value mill cards.

With regards to
Ensnaring Bridge
, Darkshadow327 accurately surmised my point. The only benefit Petitioners provide to mill is a mid-sized blocker.
Ensnaring Bridge
is far better against aggressive creature-based decks, making it superior to Petitioners for defence.

Just like in a burn deck, you do not want to mainboard
Ensnaring Bridge
--it's only really useful against hyper aggressive decks that risk overwhelming you before you can finish milling. Against slower decks, those three mana would be better spent going for a faster kill.

The reason mill doesn't shine in Modern is because, as much as it pains me to say this, it is a bad archetype. It's burn, but you're attacking a 60-life resource, rather than a 20-life one. Further, your "burn" spells can only attack an opponent, whereas
Lightning Bolt
can take out an enemy in a pinch. With regards to your point about mitigation of burn vs. mitigation of mill, many decks do not run lifegain, and a good burn deck

Darkshadow327 - one correction to your post, you can mill for 12 the turn you've fielded four copies of Petitioners. As there is no symbol in the mill-12 ability, summoning sickness does not apply.

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